Psychotherapy in Central London

I offer specialist psychotherapy in Central London at the clinic I manage: Charter. If you’d like to discuss working with me or one of our clinical team please contact me for further details using the form on this website.

My Approach

My approach is psychoanalytic, but rarely so you’d notice. I’ve also trained in a number of other approaches, including EMDR and CBT. I’m particularly interested in working with people who feel their life has been affected by trauma, depression or addiction.

Who needs Psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy can be anything from an opportunity to think about your life and your future in ways you may never have considered before to treating addictions, effects of trauma such as PTSD and dissociation, and conditions that are often referred to as personality or psychiatric disorders.

The Kinds of Thing people Ask

— My husband drinks and I can’t stand it any more. Why haven’t I done anything about it before now?

— I have no idea what to do. My life feels pointless.

— I’m very successful but I’m so unhappy.

— I can’t sleep, I’m having flashbacks.

— I fall in love too easily. People break my heart.

— I don’t understand why I can’t concentrate. I can’t even read a page without losing my place.

— I’m bulimic. I’m a middle-aged man and nobody knows.

— I trained to do this job. I’m an academic and I love teaching, but it feels as if it’s killing me.

— I hurt people, all of the time. I’m not a nice person.

— I can’t say no. I’m never able to say what I want.

These are all things that it’s likely I may be able to help you with.

My Experience

I’ve worked with some of the poorest and wealthiest people in the country. People from either of these groups, or anywhere between them can feel trapped, disempowered, and even worthless, and when they do, the same kinds of thing happen.

I have extensive experience treating eating disorders and debilitating relational conditions such as codependency, sex and love addiction or ‘borderline’ personality disorder. I regard all of these categories as open to exploration: you may wish to identify with them or you might want to disregard them. My work always involves looking at you as an individual who has to coexist with other individuals; sometimes labels are helpful and sometimes they are restrictive, coercive and destructive. During your therapy I’ll invite you to understand yourself as comfortably and as confidently as you can. If you do this, life is very likely to provoke less anxiety in you. The decisions we make and the commitments we keep will always be more difficult, and more likely to lead to unhappiness if we don’t know what we need.

Although the main part of my psychotherapy practice is in central London I also offer some consultations in Canterbury, Kent.

In the first instance please use the contact form on this web site, so that a private and confidential consultation can be arranged. Deciding to have psychotherapy in Central London presents you with many opportunities to engage in allied practices, such as yoga, acupuncture and meditation, all of which I am able to guide you towards based on the network of therapists I have worked with over many years.

Family & Couples’ Psychotherapy

I also offer couples’ therapy and family therapy in conjunction with an experienced clinical team. The aim of the therapy is not to make a relationship work, or to hold a family together, but to explore the explicit and implicit dynamics playing out in the couple or the group and to look at how these affect qualities such as cohesiveness, happiness, creativity and fairness. My work with families and couples always examines how power plays out and what this means to each individual involved.

I have experience working with individuals of different sexualities, and who choose to think of themselves differently, without identifying with any particular group.

EMDR and Trauma Psychotherapy In Central London

I am a fully qualified EMDR therapist and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. I believe EMDR has its roots in Freud’s earliest work and I have found my approach is shaped by connections I have noticed between the two approaches. Many aspects of a model of group trauma therapy I presented at the 2015 UKCP research conference, and my experiences as a professional writer also find their way into my work (although I often do still work in a more traditional, analytic way; it depends on what my client needs).

I am interested in the relationship between trauma and addiction, and the ways in which the behaviours we act out, which we often wish we didn’t, relate to experiences in our pasts, and in our parents’. EMDR sometimes arrests a symptom almost immediately (things like flashbacks and very uncomfortable feelings). It most often contributes, in the way I work, towards a longer term sense of relaxedness and of feeling more present in life, more positively and less confusingly connected within it.

Associative Psychotherapy In Central London

I am particularly interested in psychoanalytically induced EMDR as a treatment for codependency and other relationship problems – an approach I call ‘Associative Psychotherapy’. Associative Psychotherapy engages with dissociation in its many different forms: from the more obvious types of dissociative behaviour such as ‘zoning out’ or ‘forgetting’ to losing touch with basic needs, a sense of reality, a sense of power, or a broad understanding of consequences (good and bad).

I am able to provide this psychotherapy in Central London, at Charter, and in Canterbury, Kent. The work usually comprises an initial seven sessions of more EMDR-focused treatment, followed by regular, long-term, fifty minute sessions. Much depends on individual needs.

Groups and Workshops in Central London

I am able to provide group psychotherapy in Central London, at Charter. Please contact me using the form provided. I am also often asked to run specific workshops, usually relating to aspects of psychotherapy, or phrased in relation to particular topics (for example codependency). Sometimes I provide groups and workshops that explore the relationship between writing and psychotherapy.

Assessment

During our first session I will assess the situation and provide you with a plan of how the work might proceed. I also offer assessment sessions as the basis for report writing, insurance claims and so on. Occasionally the assessment period needs to extend beyond one session. If this is likely I will tell you in advance.

Treatment Information

My sessions ordinarily last for 50 minutes. Sometimes, with work involving EMDR, sessions last longer. The session length will always be agreed beforehand if there is going to be a variation from the normal pattern.

My charges relate to the specific work being undertaken and are always agreed prior to the treatment commencing. I sometimes offer reductions, depending on personal circumstances, the length of treatment and the amount of times we meet each week.

Supervision and Ethical Working

All of my work is supervised by fully accredited psychoanalytic supervisors and EMDR consultants. I am an accredited member of UKCP and a member of The Guild of Psychotherapists. Both of these organisations scrutinise my work and provide an ethical framework I am obliged to abide by.